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Blackadder's Scratchbuilt Thunderhawk

Well it's not exactly my Thunderhawk, my son started building this a few years ago and I helped him with the engines. Since then he has lost interest in it because GW is coming out with a plastic Thunderhawk but I say what the hey; the basic hull is done and the fun part is in the detail so I'm picking it up.

Below are the pictures of how it is right now and judging by the amount of time it took me to build the Warhound

The basic hull is made of 1/2 inch foam filled posterboard and skinned over with standard posterboard.

The engines are made of PVC tubing split in half and secured together with the next size larger tubing. The nose cowl is shaped on a benchtop belt sander and fine sanded smooth. The tail cone is a standard industrial thread cone spool I found in a garage sale.

Re: Blackadder's Scratchbuilt Thunderhawk

Nice looking scratch build so far... but what makes you guys think a plastic one is coming anytime soon?

Listen up! What we need is this! Yes, calcium! If we have enough calcium, we can do anything! Trouble with tests? Fighting with your parents? Some girl you like? Odiferous nethers? If you have enough calcium, all of these can be solved!

I've been trying to find all my posting forums as I lost the addresses when I got my new computer.

To bring this up to date here is the T'hawk as of today:

I couldn't sleep last night; I was wide awake at 1:50AM so I figured why not do a little work on the T'hawk until i get sleepy. Well here it is 9 hours later and I'm still working on the d--ned thing. H-ll I couldn't be paid for working this hard but the results are gratifying none the less. I just fastened on the wings (temporarily with a couple of screws so the wings have a bit of negative dihedral (Dihedral! We don't need no stinking dihedral! (especially negative)). I'm lucky today is Saturday or I'd be in a world of hurt sleepwise.

As familiar as I am with current jet engines I'm stymied by the drum-like affairs surrounding the compressor housing and exhaust turbines on these engines. There are two above and two below and they seem to be vented with louvers fore and aft. My guess is they augment the intake air in the rarefied partial vacuum of orbital space but why they are needed on the rear as well is a mystery. After burner maybe?

Anywho here are the bits components of the basic engine rough cut and ready for final shaping and assembly.

As familiar as I am with current jet engines I'm stymied by the drum-like affairs surrounding the compressor housing and exhaust turbines on these engines. There are two above and two below and they seem to be vented with louvers fore and aft. My guess is they augment the intake air in the rarefied partial vacuum of orbital space but why they are needed on the rear as well is a mystery. After burner maybe.

Hrm... that sound suspiciouslly like logic to me. We don't take kindly to that sort of talk round here.

Anyways, this is looking absolutly amazing man. I'm stunned by how detailed this is. A damn fine model so far.

Taking the rough cut crescent pieces, I tacked them together with a couple of dots of ambroid and sanded them to the final shape. Then separating them more or less in the middle I reversed the two pieces to see how well they conform to their mirror inages. Then I compared the ends to the middle. Happily they matched up pretty good.

The whatever it is cowling for the engine basic construction. The first two I made just for practice and are 23 mm long and the base flairs slightly. They will be abbreviated and used on the belly engine. The next set will be for the wing engines now that I have the specs down and will be 22 mm in length.

Striping down the fuselage and just jamming about half the bulbs into the forward cargo bay shows me they will provide sufficient light to illuminate the interior and taking so little space to be readily hidden behind the thin walls and ceiling of the bay

Awright before anyone points it out, I know the ceiling is hanging down on the left side....

This is just a trial to determine of the lighting is adequate which it is and then some. The camera lens picks up a lot more light than is apparent in person and the lenses defuse the harshness of the LEDs just about right.